griffgriff

https://www.shawplan.com/extreme_coach4mm.html Griff

Nice you’ve got options on the mud guards…. PS nice photos @PaulRhB👍 Griff

The think about bauxite is that it develops it’s own patina through bleaching and staining. Over time it ends up in a colour similar to the rust coming through it. I’ve seen wagons where the only way you can tell the weathered paintwork and rusty bodywork apart is by looking for textural differences; the rust being pitted and the paint being smooth. Griff

I hear on the BBC news this evening of ‘warmed up’ leftovers being suggested; a conventional (rather than HS) line running on the planned alignment of HS2 using the land already purchased. Griff

What to do with Airfix B4s? …. If you take a close look at the damper it’s quite bulky and the rod is squared off. If you flatten the front to make a flat face, add some plastic to beef up the spring plank then it has more than a passing resemblance to a B5. Handy for any heavy mk1 conversions you might be thinking about.

There are 3 solutions. 1 bite the bullet… 27 x 3 isn’t that many and you’ll be much faster soldering up the 81st wire than the first. 2 use insulated crossings with DCC stay alive chips in those locos that are at risk of stalling. 3 reduce the number of turnouts to make wiring simpler on a first project. …what you mustn’t do, is give up. Griff

I’m with Robert Smith on this one 🤪

Depressingly, I suspect this might be accurate 😐

Bump… not long now 🙂

If you looked behind you you would have also seen they are matching the EFE clay tiger offers seen elsewhere. 30% off which makes them around £30. Griff PS they are also giving away a goody bag of Scenecraft scenic materials with purchases. I don’t know if there is a minimum spend but I spent £50 and got one.

Where’s the fun in that?

It’s interesting that everyone seems to be not wish listing locomotives. What about stock we don’t want…. Have I got that tight? Well, I definitely don’t want to see a Bullied 4EPB… hopefully my reverse logic will work wonders. Griff

An observation. I recently built a flat bottomed turnout for the first time. Obviously, they are different beasts to bullhead turnouts. The bad news. I found the switch tricky because of the cross section Good news if working in EM or OO the common crossing was a breeze. Griff

You don’t need to be a qualified electrician but, as you say, you need to be qualified to PAT test and you need to have the kit. You probably need some kind of indemnity too. There seems to be a range of prices for all of these but it’s still going to cost a few hundred quid to get going Griff

Just to be clear…. The Hornby model (but not the Limby one) portrays the later 1981 batch. Here’s the relevant PB directory. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/seacow As you can see the grey still varies a lot but my recollection was they were delivered in the very pale light grey. I have no explanation why some collected a darker, almost slate, gre? Griff